Izvestia: Fraudsters extort money posing as utility workers
A new wave of telephone fraud began in Russia in June. According to Izvestia, the scammers operate on behalf of utility workers and take out large loans in the names of their victims.
The calls are made under the pretext of checking electricity meters, recalculating utility bills or discounts on housing and communal services (HCS). Most often, residents of the country are called by alleged employees of Mosenergosbyt or Mosenergo.
Russians are asked to provide a code from an SMS, after which loans are taken out using them
During the telephone conversation, the fraudsters coax the code from the SMS from their interlocutors, after which they use it to access the account on the State Services portal. Using the information obtained from there, the fraudsters take loans on behalf of the victims and withdraw funds.
Residents of the country, deceived in this way, began to turn to law enforcement agencies en masse. At the moment, investigators have opened dozens of cases.
One of the victims said that the scammers spoke to him competently and carefully. The conversation began with him being told about the inspection of the electricity meters in his house and asked to set a time for a visit from a technician. At some point, the Russian was asked to name the code that he had received via SMS from Gosuslugi. The scammers explained that they had allegedly sent the man a letter about the upcoming inspection on the portal and asked whether he had received it. “And it was clearly written there: ‘Do not tell anyone the code!'” said Moscow Region resident Alexander Serebryakov.
After this, the Russian citizen, suspicious of something, called Mosenergosbyt and asked whether the electricity meters in his house were really being checked. The organization told him that this was not the case.
Other victims said that they received calls from allegedly Mosenergo informing them of a payment of 70 thousand rubles “in connection with reaching their 50th birthday.” To receive the payment, the Russian had to provide a bank card number, passport number, SNILS, and TIN. After that, requests were sent to various credit organizations on his behalf. Fraudsters promised a discount on housing and communal services to an associate professor at a Moscow university in honor of his anniversary. To receive it, she had to allegedly register in the electronic queue at Mosenergosbyt using a code from an SMS. This is how the woman lost 250 thousand rubles.
Pensioners are caught in the “communal terror” and are losing tens of millions of rubles
How reports publication, most of the victims are pensioners living in Moscow and the region. They started receiving calls from the end of May. The amounts lost as a result of communication with scammers reach tens of millions of rubles.
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Thus, pensioner Svetlana M. was forced to withdraw 12.5 million rubles from her bank account and hand them over to a courier. And pensioner Elena M., under the pretext of “preserving savings from fraudsters,” sold her foreign car, cashed out her bank accounts, and transferred 19.3 million rubles to the scammers.
SafeTech believes that the “main problem of our time” is the use of SMS and PUSH codes, which should be abandoned.
Sberbank names three most popular telephone scams
At the end of last year, Sberbank President and Chairman of the Board German Gref named the three most common types of telephone fraud.
This includes hacking accounts in instant messengers and sending messages to contacts asking to borrow money; intimidation by saying that a loved one has found himself in a difficult life situation and has problems with the law, for the resolution of which money is needed, as well as calls from alleged intelligence officers.
The latter claim that their account has been hacked and that they urgently need to transfer all their money to a “safe” account, which in fact belongs to the scammers.
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